Samohi On-line Grading System Wins High Marks

Hannah Heineman
Mirror staff writer
  
   Santa Monica High School’s recently inaugurated on-line grading system can be viewed by parents and students 24 hours a day.
   With the introduction of the Pinnacle student grade book, members of the Samohi community can view up-to-date information on student attendance and test and quiz scores, and class standards, as well as whether assignments are turned in on time and work is missing.
   Pinnacle software also computes the students’ grade.
   To access information on a specific student’s progress, one must go to the appropriate link at the high school’s website and enter the student’s ID number and their own PIN code. For security reasons, the displayed reports do not contain the student’s name.
   Samohi’s Chief Education Officer Ilene Straus told the Mirror that the addition of Pinnacle was the next logical step for teachers as “most of them were using a computer grade book” already. She went on to say that a primary benefit of the system was that parents and students “will have quicker access to how they are doing” and problems can be caught earlier.
   A pilot program using the software began last year, and the teachers, parents and students the Mirror spoke with all spoke enthusiastically about it.
   History teacher Amy Bisson said it was a “wonderful system” because it saved her from “having to add up students points every six weeks on a calculator” for each grading period. In addition, she said, it “takes the pressure off teachers to print up students grades so they know where they are … holds teachers accountable to student grades … (and helps) “students be more accountable.”
   Samohi English instructor Meredith Louria said the faculty was trained on the software back in the summer of 2002 and continuing tutorials are provided, and “only teachers can enter grades … (so) security and confidentiality” of data is ensured. In her view, the system is “as secure as it can be.”
   Louria also noted that “by keeping my students updated on their progress, they can help me catch small errors … so they feel like they have a part in the process.”
   Because the system is “transparent,” she said, it makes grading “less subjective and very open,” as parents and students can see how students are doing because the software shows “how it all totals out.”
   It also may put an end to the classic student comment to his or her parents when he or she gets a bad grade “that the teacher didn’t like me.”
   Julie Medina, a Samohi parent and a teacher in the Los Angeles Unified School District believes the system is an asset for students at risk, because their problems can be caught before they receive a failing grade. However, after viewing her child’s grades, she reported that some teachers are supplying more information than others.
   Samohi parent Maria Rodriquez, who is also a parent liaison for John Adams Middle School, noted the new system ensures that there are “no cards under the table,” helps her child “monitor where his work is,” and is a real asset at parent teacher conferences as a print-out of the report “shows exactly where the student’s grades are” in a particular class as well as his overall performance.
   Like other students the Mirror spoke with, tenth grader David Hasid was very pleased with the Pinnacle system, because he can “check his grades without asking his teachers” and can “tell what assignments are missing.” He also added that it made him “feel more mature.”
   The only flaw he’s found is that the grades in “some of his classes are not updated daily.”
   Some parents expressed concern as to how teachers back up their students’ grades, in case the Pinnacle system has problems. The teachers the Mirror spoke with reported that they keep a hand-written grade book as back up.
   The Pinnacle system is being used at other schools in the District, but not all of them are accessible to parents and students now.